As we grow older we are shown how people interact within a relationship. We are given the tiny scraps of a gorgeous, torn-up libretto. We piece together simple passages and learn to sing them for ourselves. We venture out and learn to sing them to those that we profess to love. We do our best.
There are times when I feel proud of what I have scrounged together for myself. Yet I still do not know what I have amassed, or how much, or what exactly comes next. I look to my father; I look to my mother; my grandparents, and all those around me and wonder how it is that I was not offered more help along the way.
It is not out of malice and I do not ask embittered - but it is they too have followed this same very, different journey and have to come to find just enough that works but not enough to know why or where to start explaining to someone else.
Churches, our former centers of culture, told us how this suppose to work. Some had intricate formulas, rules, and roles for those of us to follow. Allowing us to find measured happiness. Giving a lot to some and little to most everyone else. For the injustice that these guidelines might have caused, they also gave directions - they gave you the steps to a dance that you had come to learn in life.
Without our former cultural centers we are left in a wake of advice columns. Authors that make estimations and generalizations on what they have come to know from their lives, from sociological experiments, and pop psychology. They draw conclusions because they feel like it is more poignant articulation and as an audience we seek conclusions because we want definitive answers (preferably in numerically digestible lists related to the subject).
I wondered how people could find themselves out of long-term relationships arrested in fear or overly expressive in their desires to "get laid". How could someone want to find themselves seeking the patterned social dance moves of a prior cultural time. Or sign hundreds of dollars away to Pick-Up Artist Boot Camps to hopefully step up their game this time around and get their F-Close. And it was foolish for me to ponder upon this with the pretense that people seek at all times a dynamism when some of these roles suit them well enough. They are contented.
I say that free from any condemnation or condescension. These are our lives and we all have scrounged together our different parts and we have struggled hard enough to find our different voices.
Find your song and continue to sing it passionately for the entirety of your life.
There are times when I feel proud of what I have scrounged together for myself. Yet I still do not know what I have amassed, or how much, or what exactly comes next. I look to my father; I look to my mother; my grandparents, and all those around me and wonder how it is that I was not offered more help along the way.
It is not out of malice and I do not ask embittered - but it is they too have followed this same very, different journey and have to come to find just enough that works but not enough to know why or where to start explaining to someone else.
Churches, our former centers of culture, told us how this suppose to work. Some had intricate formulas, rules, and roles for those of us to follow. Allowing us to find measured happiness. Giving a lot to some and little to most everyone else. For the injustice that these guidelines might have caused, they also gave directions - they gave you the steps to a dance that you had come to learn in life.
Without our former cultural centers we are left in a wake of advice columns. Authors that make estimations and generalizations on what they have come to know from their lives, from sociological experiments, and pop psychology. They draw conclusions because they feel like it is more poignant articulation and as an audience we seek conclusions because we want definitive answers (preferably in numerically digestible lists related to the subject).
I wondered how people could find themselves out of long-term relationships arrested in fear or overly expressive in their desires to "get laid". How could someone want to find themselves seeking the patterned social dance moves of a prior cultural time. Or sign hundreds of dollars away to Pick-Up Artist Boot Camps to hopefully step up their game this time around and get their F-Close. And it was foolish for me to ponder upon this with the pretense that people seek at all times a dynamism when some of these roles suit them well enough. They are contented.
I say that free from any condemnation or condescension. These are our lives and we all have scrounged together our different parts and we have struggled hard enough to find our different voices.
Find your song and continue to sing it passionately for the entirety of your life.
I really liked this blog, especially this passage: "they too have followed this same very, different journey and have to come to find just enough that works but not enough to know why or where to start explaining to someone else." When you're working one-on-one with someone it's a lot easier, but when you're writing for a mass audience of people you don't know, it often feels like a total crap shoot as to what's going to be helpful for people.
My imperfect solution is to write as honestly as I can and hope it either inspires or enrages people enough that they go out and find what works for them.
Personally, I believe relationships are experiential. A church can't teach you how to do it. An advice columnist can't tell you how to do it. A pick-up artist can't teach you how to do it. People have to teach themselves by testing what they're told, because in the end they're the ones who know themselves and are ultimately responsible for their own happiness.